


gonna go to babylon and get me some whiskey

by andromeda3116



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, sequel to "only fools rush in"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 18:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda3116/pseuds/andromeda3116
Summary: “Oh, you've got to go to therightplaces for Chablis,” Aunt Lizzie started, and they all simultaneously had the same vision of where that sentence was going, and each came up with an impromptu solution. As Aunt Lizzie started to say, “Not any of those —”, all at the same time:Jyn said, very loudly, “Mum, didn't you say the Christmas pudding was almost ready?”Bodhi knocked his wineglass over onto his plate with an exaggerated cry.Cassian began to clean up their empty plates, with a comment of, “I think it's time for dessert,” but then changed tack to help Bodhi before the red wine got onto the rug.And Reid declared, to the table at large, “I think Jyn is pregnant.”The room went from rising chaos to dead silence in seconds, and every eye landed on her.





	gonna go to babylon and get me some whiskey

**Author's Note:**

> so listen.
> 
> i wrote the vast (and i do mean _vast_ ) majority of this quite some time ago, but i could never manage to wrap it all up properly, and so it's languished in my google docs for, oh, a year and a half or so. but finally, after all this time, i managed to get back to it and pull together a conclusion that i was satisfied with, and so, without further ado, the long-awaited and long-teased and significantly-overdue one-shot epilogue to _only fools rush in_.

_if I hear another song about angels, if I see another feather on the dumb-box  
_ _I'm gonna go to Babylon and get me some whiskey, gonna go to Babylon and get me some whiskey, now._

.

Reid was suspicious.

Jyn had fully expected him to be the biggest threat, since he was observant and devious and — perhaps most importantly, on this trip, at least — completely disinterested in Lydia’s very… _vocal_ pregnancy. In fact, Lydia had done a lot more to help Jyn than she knew, since she’d taken to telling everyone who would stand still for ninety seconds all about the baby’s developmental stage and what names they’d considered and all of her plans for the birth.

(They were having a boy, his name was going to be Sebastian Alexander, he was approximately twenty centimeters long, and they had seen him sucking his little thumb on the 3D ultrasound, _how adorable everybody look isn’t he so adorable_.)

(She wouldn’t admit it even with a gun put up to her head, but it was actually very cute.)

Jyn had been counting on Lydia monopolizing everyone’s attention, and it had been working quite well, except that now Reid was suspicious.

“I’m telling you,” Bodhi hissed, watching around the side of the bar to make sure no one was coming, “you are _not_ gonna be able to pull this off.”

“We agreed on New Year’s,” she replied, pouring white grape juice into a wineglass. “If I can keep it up until the New Year’s party, I win.”

“I _really_ don’t think it’ll work,” he said. “Everyone’s got baby fever, they’re _watching_ for it.”

“Cassian’s idea about the grape juice has kept them all off the scent,” she countered, comparing the contents of her wineglass with the bottle of Chardonnay — it passed remarkably well, the only problem being that she’d had to feign a sudden interest in Chardonnay. “I just need Mum to pull through with the sparkling stuff for the party.”

“Reid is suspicious,” Bodhi countered, crossing his arms. “He knows something is up.”

“That’s because Reid isn’t stupid,” she muttered, cringing as she took a sip of the grape juice. “Or distracted by monologues on the exact size of Lydia’s fetus. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I’m showing.”

“In their defense, with your sweaters and everything, it just looks like you’ve put on a half-stone or so,” he replied, and Jyn scowled into the wineglass. She wasn’t vain, by nature, but she’d stayed basically the same size since she was eighteen, and the fact that her clothes were starting to get uncomfortably tight was irritating. Her favorite pair of jeans had been impossible to button up on the morning before they’d left, and Cassian had found her half-naked and throwing clothes all over their room to try and find something that fit.

He had wisely decided not to comment. Between the hormones and the goddamned _persistent_ morning sickness (still!) keeping her up half the night, she had not exactly been all pregnancy glow and doe-eyed bliss.  

She had almost decided not to come this Christmas, guilt-trips be damned, because the first person who put their hand on her belly without her explicit permission was going to get punched in the face, even if they were her eighty-five-year-old grandmother.

The compromise she had made with her mother had been, Lyra and Galen (and Bodhi and Cassian, although the both of them had made it abundantly clear that they would not be contradicting Jyn on _anything whatsoever_ at least until the baby was born) would help her hide the pregnancy from everyone until the New Year’s party, at which point they would announce it to Gran and Papa and the whole family, giving all of them one (1) day to coo over Jyn and awkwardly pat Cassian on the back before everyone went their separate ways.

Jyn had fought hard for breaking the news to everyone on the way out the door, but even Lyra had called that too mean. _They_ are _your family_ , _Jyn_ , she’d said, admonishing. _They’ll want to celebrate._  

“Is that Chardonnay?” Reid asked, when she and Bodhi rejoined the table.

“Yeah,” she said, taking a sip. “Why?”

“Can I have some?”

Jyn glared at him. “No.”

“What, are you sick or something?” he asked, blinking rapidly in fascination.

(She no longer wondered why he'd quit acting.)

“Get your own wine,” she countered. “I didn’t even think you liked Chardonnay.”

“I didn’t think _you_ liked Chardonnay.”

“Tastes change,” she said reproachfully.

“Hey, Cassian,” Reid said, leaning over Jyn to speak to her husband, on the other side. “How long has Jyn been drifting into white-girl-wino territory over here?”

Cassian didn’t miss a beat. “We went to a wine tasting a few months ago,” he lied smoothly. “They had some Chablis, it managed to convert both of us.”

“Ooh, Chablis,” Aunt Lizzie cut in. “So delightful, and different! Less oaky, and very dry. Excellent varietal. Do we have some?”

“No,” Jyn replied, on a theatrical sigh. “Not for lack of trying, but I couldn't find any.”

She was really hoping that — based on the fact that until thirty seconds ago she had never heard of this wine — it wasn't very common around here. She wasn't exactly wrong.

“Oh, you've got to go to the _right_ places for Chablis,” Aunt Lizzie started, and they all simultaneously had the same vision of where that sentence was going, and each came up with an impromptu solution. As Aunt Lizzie started to say, “Not any of those —”, all at the same time:

Jyn said, very loudly, “Mum, didn't you say the Christmas pudding was almost ready?”

Bodhi knocked his wineglass over onto his plate with an exaggerated cry.

Cassian began to clean up their empty plates, with a comment of, “I think it's time for dessert,” but then changed tack to help Bodhi before the red wine got onto the rug.

And Reid declared, to the table at large, “I think Jyn is pregnant.”

The room went from rising chaos to dead silence in seconds, and every eye landed on her.

Jyn’s legendary stubborn streak rose up with a vengeance. “Excuse me?” she snapped, crossing her arms and affecting an offended air. “Do you think I would be drinking wine if I was pregnant?” The problem, she knew, was going to be Bodhi, who she could see out of the corner of her eye struggling not to laugh.

“I think it's white grape juice,” Reid countered. “There's a thing of it at the bar and _somebody’s_ been drinking it.”

Shit.

“You _do_ look like you've put on weight,” Gran, ever-tactful, mused, and it might have been the only time in Jyn's entire life that she had been grateful for the woman’s comments on her appearance.

“Cassian is a very good cook,” she replied through gritted teeth, latching onto the change of subject like it was a lifeline. “I thought I looked like a broom before, no meat on my bones at all, that's what you said last year.”

“You look _healthy,_  dear,” Aunt Lizzie cut in, with slightly-slurred kindness. “Filled out a bit, is all.”

“Didn't see you at breakfast,” Kent said slowly, leaning over and peering at her suspiciously. She clenched her jaw; she’d made an attempt, but the smell of bacon frying had sent her straight to the toilet.

“The jet lag has been rough on all of us,” Cassian said, with some reproach. “And she had to work late to prepare for taking a week off.”

“It's a vacation,” she grumbled. “I should be allowed to sleep in without getting accused of secret pregnancy.”

“That's fair,” Aunt Tilda said, and the way she met Jyn’s eyes made her think that Aunt Tilda knew. It was possible: they'd told her parents a couple of days before deciding to hide it until New Year’s, and if Mum in her excitement had told anyone, she'd told Tilda. Her next sentence cemented it: “For your information, Reid,” she went on primly, “the white grape juice is mine. I've been trying to cut back on my drinking, but I didn't want to make a fuss over it.”

Reid blinked. “Oh,” he said, uncomfortably. “I… sorry, Jyn.”

“It's fine,” she huffed, rolling her eyes.

“Although that does bring up the question,” Gran started, and Jyn felt her blood pressure skyrocket. “You've been married two years, are there any plans for a family? None of us are getting any younger,” she added brightly.

“We already are a family,” Cassian replied, with deliberate and patient misunderstanding.

“Oh, not without the pitter-patter of little feet,” Gran said indulgently, and if Jyn had not already been nineteen weeks pregnant, she felt like she would have called her doctor and scheduled a tubal ligation right then and there.

No one seemed to know how to respond to that. 

After several seconds of painful silence, Bodhi took one for the team.

“Guess I'm never gonna have a family, then, dang,” he said, with a determined laugh.

“Oh, you'll find yourself a girl and settle down once this experimenting phase is over,” Gran said, in what was apparently meant to be a soothing tone. The awkward silence became downright stifling.

“I'm gonna just,” Reid said in a low voice, head bowed, “apologize for _literally_ everything I have said and done in the past hour.”

“Experime—” Kent started, then caught himself, the _it's not worth it_ visibly passing over his face, but Jyn, whose patience with her extended family insulting her brother was thin even when she wasn't marinating in hormones, couldn't quite do the same.

“I don't really think —” she began, but Galen cut her off, clearly seeing the rising explosion.

“— It’s time for dessert!” he said, loudly and a bit desperately. “Didn't you say dessert was ready? We should have dessert. Let's have dessert.”

Jyn scowled, and fumed, and the only thing that stopped her from bulldozing over her father's attempt to defuse the situation was Cassian's hand on her knee, gently squeezing.

.

“I still don't think this is normal,” Cassian said quietly, holding back her hair at roughly four in the morning. “I'm worried about you.”

She rested her forehead on the cool porcelain and took several deep breaths. “Dr. Thomas says it's not uncommon,” she sighed. “And Mum said she was sick the whole time with me. I _am_ keeping a lot more down now.”

“That isn't saying much,” he replied, sounding concerned. Jyn was honestly going to be floored if he made it through the next four months without either giving himself an aneurysm or getting a Xanax prescription, especially after the first time he'd had to take her to ER for dehydration.

Cassian was a worrier; he’d always had so few people in his life who mattered to him that he tended to go overboard for the ones who did. And now that it was Jyn who was sick, and not only her but also their unborn child, he was freaking out nearly all the time.

It was both sweet and frustrating.

Jyn, personally, was less concerned about the vomiting, with which she had become intimately familiar over the past few months, than she was with how she was going to make it to breakfast.

“After that bullshit at dinner, I won't be able to skip breakfast again,” she groaned, and she felt Cassian shift beside her.

“I can make you some of that ginger tea, you said it helped last time,” he offered, and she nodded.

“The kitchen should be empty,” she murmured.

“You want it now?” he asked, and she bit back both a nasty response and another wave of nausea, thankfully dry.

“Yes,” she said coolly, through gritted teeth. “I want it now.”

.

Cassian knew he was being obnoxious. He knew it, he knew that Jyn got irritated with his worrying, knew that there was now little reason for all his concern — but he'd been worried from the moment she'd told him she was pregnant, partly because while he was sure that Jyn would be a great mother, he had deep and profound reservations about his ability to be a father.

His own father had died when he was six, leaving him with only vague memories of the man, and Draven — although he had _meant_ well — was not exactly winning any godparenting awards. His positive experiences with father figures were basically restricted to his father-in-law, whom he had known for right at four years.

Galen had assured him that the mere fact that he was worried and wanted to be a good father meant that he would be one, but… well, Draven had tried and wanted to be a good father, and had mostly just succeeding at fucking Cassian up worse.

And on top of all of that, Jyn had hardy stopped being sick. The doctor had said that although she’d been gaining weight slowly, it wasn't _abnormally_ slow considering how sick she'd been at the start, and she was keeping most of what she ate down now, so they were expecting her to be completely on-track at the next appointment. She was looking much healthier, and showing, and said she could feel the baby moving, and everything seemed to be going better now, but…

But all Cassian could think of was the first truly awful bout of morning sickness, which had led to a frantic trip to the ER and overnight hospital stay that had made him seriously ask at what point the doctor recommended abortion. The memory of her laying in the stark white hospital bed, pale and small and miserable, with him utterly helpless, was proving extremely slow to fade.

“Poor Jyn’s being sick, is she?” someone said from behind him, startling him, and he turned away from the kettle to see Tilda at the edge of the kitchen.

“Ah…” he started, cringing, then sighed. “Yes.”

“Ginger and lemon?” Tilda asked, walking up and peering into the mug. “That's good for settling the stomach. You might also take her some toast, it tends to ease up once you've got something in your belly.”

“The last time she tried toast, it… didn't go well,” he replied delicately. She had actually felt slightly better and crawled back into the bed, a few minutes before again being sick, this time on the comforter. She'd been so miserable and exhausted that she'd started crying, and he'd been helpless to do anything except carry her back to the bathroom and clean up. It had not been a good night.

“Well, she's further along now,” Tilda said, shrugging and confirming beyond a doubt that she, at least, knew. “It might work better now if she's less awfully ill than earlier on.”

“I'll ask if she thinks she can keep it down,” he said, then glanced up at her. “Who told you?”

“Lyra,” she answered, with a shrug. “Shortly after she found out, then she called me the next day to tell me it was a secret. As though I'd be stealing anyone's thunder like that,” she said, smirking a bit, then sighing. “I don't blame her one bit,” she muttered, shaking her head. “They were all so… _overwhelming_ when I was pregnant with Kent that I only told them about Reid when we came home from the hospital.”

“How bad was it?” he asked, with both trepidation and amusement. Tilda scoffed.

“My mother insisted upon going to all of my ultrasound appointments, even though we didn't live anywhere near her. She called every day with tips her mother taught her in 1950, and spent more time talking to my stomach than me.” She shook her head. “With Jyn being her only granddaughter, I imagine she’ll be calling every day for an update. Just as a warning.”

“Great,” he said flatly, and she smiled.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, and at his quizzical look, elaborated. “Your first child, and of course she's been feeling so poorly. You must be nervous.”

“Oh,” he said, a bit lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yes, I… have annoyed her, I think, more than anything else.”

“She’ll look back and appreciate it,” she said kindly. “You’re _there_. A lot of men aren't.”

That was true, although it baffled Cassian how you could _not_ care; some of his co-workers had scoffed at him refusing to go out for drinks, calling him whipped, but the idea of going out drinking while Jyn was at home, sick and drained and barely able to get out of bed, absolutely disgusted him. (Kes Dameron, at least, had shot him the same “what the fuck is wrong with these people?” look that he couldn’t quite hide on his own face.)

“I have probably been… _too_ there,” he replied, cringing.

“There is no such thing as the father of your child being too present,” she countered softly. “Believe me,” she said seriously, and he looked up at her. “My Daniel… rest his soul, I thought he was going to give himself a heart attack every time Kent hiccuped,” she went on, with a small, melancholy smile. “It was frustrating sometimes, but I always knew he would be there as soon as one of us needed help. It's worth the occasional annoyance, to know that you never have to do it alone.”

He wasn’t sure what to say; the words did make him feel a bit better, or at least eased that annoying part of his brain that worried about his worrying.

“The water’s boiling,” she said abruptly, and he started, turning back to the kettle and pouring a cup of the tea, before adding a dollop of honey, just as she liked it, and probably took more time stirring it in than was strictly necessary. “You’ll do fine, you know,” she added in a soft voice, and he froze, turning and giving her a scrutinizing look.

“That’s what I'm told,” he replied noncommittally. She tilted her head.

“If you're the sort of man who'll get up at four o’clock in the morning to make your wife ginger tea,” she explained, “you’re the sort of man who will be a good father.”

Perhaps she knew that he didn't much like feeling vulnerable and exposed, with someone he didn't know very well, and particularly not at this hour of the night, because she waved a hand in the direction of the staircase. “Go on, she's waiting,” she said, but caught him at the edge of the stairs. “And, Cassian?” she said, turning and smiling at him. “Congratulations.”

He hesitated, then gave her a half-smile. “Thank you.”

.

“Well,” Jyn sighed, looking in the mirror. “I suppose _that_ cat’s out of the bag.”

She hadn’t bothered to buy a maternity dress for the party — in fact, she wasn’t a big fan of buying maternity clothes, period, and had been putting it off until she absolutely could not get away without doing so anymore — and had opted for a dress with a little stretchiness rather than an empire waist, which… well, it clung like it was supposed to, and hid _absolutely nothing_ about her now-obviously-pregnant belly.

“What do you —” Cassian started, looking over to her and pausing. “Oh. Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Should’ve sprung for the empire waist,” she muttered, but he made a sound of disagreement.

“I don’t know, I imagine your cousin’s reaction to seeing you at the party will be entertaining.”

She laughed. “Oh, Reid’s gonna be _livid_.”

Cassian smiled and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her temple; she relaxed into him and let out a long breath. It had been and looked like it was going to keep being rough, but for all that she snapped and cried and — she cringed internally at the memory — puked in the bed, he was still _there_. She kept wondering when he’d snap and lose his patience with her, but even though he had certainly gotten irritated on a few occasions, and they’d had to go to opposite sides of the apartment to cool off, he never _left_. Not when she might need him.

(God, she had _thrown up in the bed_ , all-but _on_ him, and then just sat there and cried, and he hadn’t even flinched, just took her to the bathroom and rubbed her back until the nausea had started to pass, and by the time she came back out, he'd already changed the sheets and started the old ones in the wash, and… she’d felt pathetic and miserable and simultaneously _absolutely starving_ and completely repulsed by food, and nobody could fix it but Cassian _helped_.)

She wrapped her arms tightly around his middle and buried her face in his chest, clutching the back of his shirt tightly; he shifted just a little.

“Jyn?” he asked, sounding a bit concerned, even as he returned the hug.

“I’m fine,” she replied, muffled into his shirt, and mentally cursing the stupid hormones that were making tears prick at her eyes. “I love you.”

He relaxed and kissed the top of her head, holding her close to him.

It had only been a few moments — just long enough to get her emotions at least half-under her control — when someone knocked at the door and she pulled away, blinking rapidly and clenching her jaw against the emotion. It was the same sort of love she’d felt for years, but steeped in pregnancy hormones and boiled in sleep deprivation and shared misery, and… it didn’t _have_ to be shared, but he shared it with her and made it just that little bit easier, and —  _goddammit_.

“Jyn? Cassian?” Bodhi said, opening the door tentatively. “Everyone decent?”

“Yes, you can come in,” Cassian replied, giving Jyn a slightly confused but affectionate look as she angrily wiped tears away, muttering under breath about _fucking goddamn hormones_.

“Hey, Mum was looking for —  _oh_ ,” he said, trailing off as his eyes landed on Jyn. Both of them looked at him in confusion, as his face went through a rapid emotional journey, from surprise to uncertainty to happiness and then to an expression now _very_ familiar to her, of forcibly suppressing tears.

“What?” she asked, and he gestured at her.

“I…” he started, clenching his jaw. “I mean, I _knew_ but…”

It took a second for it to sink in — it was winter, all the times he’d seen her since she’d started to show, she’d been wearing a sweater or a coat, so… it was the first time he’d looked at her and _seen_ that she was pregnant, that he was going to be an uncle. On the heels of that understanding came the realization that her parents were probably going to have the same reaction. It was both incredibly sweet and kind of embarrassing.

“Sorry,” he said, coughing a bit. “Um… Mum was looking for you. She got the sparkling stuff, but I think it’s probably not gonna really, um… matter.”

“Well, at least I’ll have something to toast with,” she replied, shrugging, and patting him on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s all go downstairs and give Reid an aneurysm.”

.

She had hardly stepped off the last stair when her cousin’s shout echoed around the room.

“ _I knew it!_ ” Reid yelled, storming up to her with a strange mixture of happiness and righteous fury on his face. “You _lied_ to me!” 

“Reid, please,” she said, with a sardonic smile, a hand over her belly because if she was going down like this, she was going down in _style_ , dammit. “I lied to _everyone_. I didn’t want all the attention.”

“Oh my God, Jyn,” Aunt Lizzie gasped, and she tried not to notice that the entire room was staring at her, and starting to whisper. Focusing on Reid was much easier.

“Did my _mother_ know about this?” Reid spluttered, and Jyn shrugged.

“Apparently,” she replied, shrugging in false carelessness. “Mum told her to keep it a secret, though.”

“I can’t _believe_ this,” he went on, crossing his arms and fuming, as Gran began fluttering over, open delight on her face, and Jyn fought back the urge to cringe, looking desperately around for Cassian or at least her parents. Luckily, Cassian was right behind her, and reached her just in time, placing a hand on the small of her back.

“Oh my goodness!” Gran gushed, shoving past Reid unceremoniously and taking her by both hands. “Jyn! This is wonderful! When are you due?”

“May twentieth,” she replied, forcing a smile.

“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” Aunt Lizzie asked breathily, and Cassian, perhaps feeling the tension in her body or else just knowing her well enough to know how _incredibly_ uncomfortable she was, picked up the slack.

“Not yet,” he answered, and the attention shifted to him. “We’ll find out at the next appointment.”

“Oh, Cassian!” Gran cried, and Jyn was the only one close enough to hear him groan. It was comforting to know that she wasn’t alone in feeling ridiculously awkward, and she managed a much more genuine smile.

Jyn spent most of the party after that feeling like a broken record —  _yes I'm pregnant, we’re due May twentieth, yes we're very excited, no we don't know the baby's sex yet, no we don't have a name picked out_  — but overall, since only her grandmother and Aunt Lizzie put their hands on her belly (even though she _told_ _them_ that they wouldn't be able to feel anything just yet), it seemed like Cassian, who had been dragged off by the men to talk about “manly things”, was actually having it much worse.

He was currently standing in the middle of a group of suits at least twice his age, presumably being given really terrible advice, and giving her a completely smooth-faced expression, like one of those guys in _the_ _Office_. She had spent about ten minutes unsuccessfully trying to escape Aunt Penny’s endless list of ways to get her pre-pregnancy body back, before her mother rescued her and, by extension, him. 

“Oh, Penny,” Lyra said with forced brightness. “Now's hardly the time to worry about that sort of thing, don't you think? You've been over here keeping Jyn all to yourself when everybody wants to see her!”

“It's _important_ ,” Aunt Penny huffed, with feeling. Jyn resisted the urge to ask her how the divorce was going; she'd been a lot more bearable since finally splitting from her husband, but then, she had been _so_ unbearable to begin with. Still, it would be nasty, and she hadn't yet felt out how far she could push the “sorry I'm hormonal” excuse until people stopped buying it.

“Well, not at the moment, you see,” Mum replied through gritted teeth.

“I appreciate the advice, Aunt Penny,” Jyn said, with as much warmth as she could muster (not much, if she was being honest), and hoped that nobody asked what that advice had been. Something something fruit smoothies, maybe? She was pretty sure that fruit had been involved.

Finally slipping away, she muscled her way through the forest of businessmen to catch Cassian by the arm. “Sorry, but I've got to steal him away for a bit, you understand,” she trilled, but one of them — a business partner of her uncle, he was always at these things — scoffed.

“Oh, you'll be stealing him away from _everything_ soon enough, let him stay with the men while he can, there's a good girl,” he chortled, making Jyn briefly fantasize about tearing his face right off his skull, and it took her a couple of seconds to recover and settle on something that might not jeopardize anyone's job.

“I don't know how to respond to that,” she replied bluntly. “So, I… won't. Cassian, Mum wanted to ask you about any family names of yours,” she went on, with a theatrical sigh, “although I told her we wanted to find out if it's a boy or a girl first, I think Gran is hounding her about it.”

“What a shame,” he deadpanned, with no attempt to sound disappointed to be drawn away from the men; she stifled a smile. “Let's go talk to her.”

“Ah, shite,” she muttered, as they ducked out of the crowd. “Mum's still talking to Aunt Penny.”

“I never thought that I would say this,” he sighed, “but I would _much_ rather speak with her than them.”

“That bad, huh?”

“You don't wanna know about the “advice” your uncle’s friends were giving me,” he said with a dark half-glance over his shoulder. Jyn cringed.

“Incredibly personal and inappropriate?”

“They kept winking,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And nudging me with their elbows.”

“Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Men are the worst.” She _felt_ him shooting her an unimpressed half-glare, and snickered, making no attempt at apology. “Present company excluded.”

“Honestly, after dealing with _them_ , I think I agree,” he muttered.

“Hi,” she said brightly, once they'd arrived at her mother, “I had to rescue Cassian from the sexist suit brigade over there. We're talking about interesting stuff, yeah?”

“Penny was just telling me that Tilda put her in touch with a psychologist,” Mum said, looking vaguely alarmed, “who's willing to testify about the decades of emotional abuse she's suffered.”

Jyn… struggled.

While it was probably accurate, opening up the “what qualifies as emotional abuse” can of worms in divorce court, with Aunt Penny — Our Lady of Passive-Aggressiveness — as the defendant seemed like a difficult case. On the other hand, it was nice of Aunt Tilda to offer the support.

“I'm not certain I _agree_ with the woman, mind,” Aunt Penny cut in.

“They say neglect is one of the worst kinds of abuse,” Cassian commented, and Jyn glanced at him, confused. He raised an eyebrow. “I _really_ didn't like Sylvia's husband when they were dating.”

Sensing the conversation beginning to sink (further) into uncomfortable territory, Jyn changed the subject with all the subtlety of a freight train. “Do you think she's actually gonna try again for a boy, or was that just her…” she made a vague hand motion indicating _her_ _Sylvia-ness_. She truly did love her sister-in-law, but she could be a bit dramatic; after having a third child, another girl, she had declared that next time, she would go to a voodoo witch doctor and “get them to do it right”, whatever that meant. Jyn had been too alarmed to comment on it at the time.

Cassian shrugged. “She used to say she wanted two boys and two girls, so probably. But I _think —_ ” he made a show of extreme emphasis on _think_ “— that the witch doctor part was a joke.”

Aunt Penny — to her credit — attempted to smile. “Your sister is so… colorful,” she said delicately, and Mum snorted. Sylvia and Aunt Penny had first met at the wedding rehearsal, and the memory of _that_ interaction still kept Jyn warm at night; as a matter of fact, Sylvia had taken to claiming credit for Aunt Penny's divorce, and she wasn't _entirely_ wrong, although it may have been more accurate to say that she had provided the final straw.

(From what Jyn had gathered after the fact, the conversation began with something like, “Oh, _you're_ the horrible aunt with the husband who can't stand you,” and went downhill from there. She wished that she'd experienced the whole thing in-person; according to Kent, in-between bouts of hysterical laughter, it was the first time in anyone's memory that Aunt Penny had found herself “completely out-bitched.” Sylvia, Jyn had learned, was a warm and friendly person who nonetheless had the remarkable talent for being able to go full supervillain on cue.

Considering that her brother had a similar “fuck-you” switch, where he could go from being friendly and joking to utterly freezing the room over within the time it took to turn his head, it shouldn't have surprised her.)

“She told me to tell you Merry Christmas,” Cassian said, with an ambiguous half-smile.

Aunt Penny blinked a few times. “How kind of her,” she replied stiffly. “Of course, you'll pass on my regards.”

“How does she feel about being an aunt?” Mum asked, and Aunt Penny's jaw stiffened; she'd clearly been hoping they were done with Cassians's sister.

Cassian winced a bit. “In my defense, I didn't intend to have any children, when Marina was born.”

“When we told her, she started _cackling_ ,” Jyn explained. “Apparently, her children received lots of lovely gifts from their uncle, fun gifts. _Loud_ gifts.”

“So, you'll be getting drum sets for Christmas next year?” Mum inferred, raising an eyebrow, and Jyn might have been imagining it, but it looked like Aunt Penny was even hiding a tiny, amused smile. 

“She _already_ gave us a playmat that lights up and plays music when the baby touches different parts of it,” Jyn said, affecting a frozen smile. “Leia's son has one just like it. She said it took seven months for them to kill the batteries, and then Ben cried so much when his mat didn't sing anymore that they had to replace them.”

“Han said that if they come to our apartment and it isn't in the nursery, he will buy us a new one,” Cassian added, with false brightness, “because they're just _so_ wonderful for children's development and no precious bouncing baby should be deprived of one.”

“That's a hell of a threat,” Mum replied, snickering.

“He was _very_ clear,” Jyn said. “If _he_ had to suffer through fourteen months of Old MacDonald, then by _god_ , so do the rest of us.”

Something flickered in Aunt Penny's face, almost too fast for Jyn to catch it, but for just a moment, she looked a little sad.

Right, Jyn thought, she'd never had the kind of friends who acted like that, with fond teasing and cheerful threats, and she'd alienated her sisters so much that she didn't have the inside jokes and vengeful gifts, either. What was it Mum had said about her? She'd shrunk herself down to fit into Terrence's box and then she was left all alone in there. Now she was finally getting out of it, but no less alone.

Jyn's animosity with Aunt Penny had simmered down into pity after that Christmas. She was a lonely woman who'd wasted what were supposed to be the best years of her life on someone who wasn't worth her time; she'd sacrificed her dreams at the altar, realizing much too late that someone who truly loved her wouldn't have asked her to.

And so she'd taken it out on the people around her, especially the happy ones who had what she had wanted. Apparently, that had come up at the wedding too, with Leia and Sylvia — Leia quite pregnant, and both of them ready and willing to throw hands in formal dresses — cornering her before the ceremony and demanding that she stop trying to ruin Jyn's day. Of course, Aunt Penny hadn't seen it as trying to ruin it — rather, to do it _right_ , the _proper_ way, the way that she would have planned _her_ hypothetical daughter's wedding. Much like many of her worst moments, it had come from overcompensating for her seething envy.

But it had been the last in a long string of wake-up calls, and perhaps the one that had finally made her open her eyes. She had almost let her envy ruin Jyn's day, and she'd admitted in a rather heartfelt and apologetic letter, after the fact, that it had forcibly reminded her that she'd cared for her family once and, under all the bitterness of the years, still did.

It was the letter, more than anything else, that drove her to speak.

“You should come visit us,” Jyn said, surprising all of them. “Once the baby's born. You hardly spent any time in New York after the wedding.”

Mum glanced from Jyn to Aunt Penny, and back. “Yes,” she said slowly. “You could stay with Galen and I. We've got plenty of room, and we're far enough out of the city that you can sleep at night.”

“I…” Aunt Penny started, clearly taken aback. “I'll have to look at my schedule.”

Whatever she decided, and whether or not things could really get ironed out between them, at least the olive branch had finally been extended.

Aunt Penny had once said that she used to be much like Jyn, when she was young. Jyn had never quite been sure if she believed it, but it was worth giving her the chance to reconnect with that part of herself.

After all, they _did_ say that it was never too late to change your life.

Much later, she stood with Cassian on the same balcony where they had shared their first — sort of — kiss. The countdown to midnight was approaching, like it had then, and she was leaning against the railing rather than sitting on it, but otherwise the scene was similar in composition, if different in exact form.

“It's all gonna be different this time next year,” Jyn said softly, glancing up at the stars. Cassian shrugged.

“It was all different this time last year,” he replied, one hand coming to rest lightly on her hip as she leaned into his shoulder.

“Yes, but…” she said, wrinkling her nose. “ _Baby_.”

He laughed a little, under the breath. “It was all different the year before that, because we were a real married couple,” he countered. “And the year before that, because we were newlyweds, and the year before that, because I proposed. And the year before that —”

“I get your point,” she grumbled, and he nudged her a little with his elbow.

“It _should_ be different,” he said. “Every year, a different adventure. Together.”

She made a show of rolling her eyes as someone started counting down, loudly, from ten. “Don’t get sappy on me.”

“Says the one who was crying six hours ago.”

“Oi!” she cried, with mock offense. “ _I_ have an excuse!”

Still, she was laughing when Reid shouted _One! Happy New Year!_ and Cassian smiled at her, that soft little smile like he couldn’t quite believe that she was standing in front of him.

“Happy New Year, Jyn,” he murmured.

“Happy New Year, Cassian,” she replied, and kissed him.


End file.
